I found many heart-tearing stories while on a mission trip in the mountains of Kentucky, and I found god in the strangest places. Never have I been to a place more inviting and beautiful. But behind all beauty is secret pain.

PS- I apologize for not getting on in such a long time; I’ve been in the mountains for the mission trip, and in Mexico, Cayman Islands, Honduras, and Belize. In all that time I’ve been separated from society (example: computers, phones, TVs). But these stories are about how I found God in innocence.
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Chapters:

I went to church about once every two months and I never "found"
God, I would even go as far to say that I didn't believe in him.
I volunteered to go on a mission trip with my church to the
mountains of Kentucky. I believed the usual stereo-types,
hillbillies and rednecks. I was there to help these people, but
in the end, they helped me more.

There were three families that my team of four youths and three
adults worked for. The first was a digging job. In the small
holler (a group of houses in a small valley) there was a small
wooden house with a tin roof surrounded by thick brush and
mountain forest.

We dug up coal, rocks and dirt for a week straight. After the
first day, the young woman we worked for offered us popsicles
because of the strange heat. While the rest of my group enjoyed
their scrumptious treat, I lingered by our water cooler.

"Hey, my name's Aerolin," I told her along with my age and what
school I recently attended. Her silence wasn't bad, no, she
listened to each letter I spoke.

"Name's Kate," she told me with such a heavy accent that it was
difficult to understand, "I'ma eighteen yers ole."

We got talking as my team started working. No one bothered us; it
was part of our job to mingle with the people we worked for too.
Eventually she told me that her mother died when she was twelve,
her older sister committed suicide soon afterwards, and her
father died of black lung from the coal mines a year ago.

As I listened, a blue-eyed baby cooed through the screen door of
the trailer. Kate opened the door and picked up her darling babe.
"This is Evan," she explained. Her face showed nothing but
happiness and joy. "His daddy is up in them coal mines. He sends
us checks. But he don't love me no more."

Evan giggled in her arms. "Things must be hard for you," I
guessed, but her effortless smile couldn't've grown any bigger.

"Nahh, Errrlin. Aint you learned nuthn?" She said to me, "As long
as you have them ones you love, nuthn can be hard."